


Masquerade

by catbythefirelight



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern with Bending (Avatar), Angst, Blue Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Drama, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Intercultural relationships, Mafia AU, Organized Crime, POV Alternating, Painted Lady Katara, Police, Politics, Zutara Week 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25401835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbythefirelight/pseuds/catbythefirelight
Summary: He is the presumptive heir to the leadership of the Fire Nation’s reigning mafia clan. She is the daughter of murdered Water Tribe diplomats. Neither will realize how their worlds will be upended when they collide together.Zutara Week 2020, Day 3: Fuse
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 68
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	Masquerade

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in a modern version of ATLA, with bending but without the Hundred Year War - mostly because Zuko’s family here is mafia instead of royalty. So, this fic will be dark - the sort of dark you’d expect any story about the mafia to have. Detailed warnings are in the end notes if needed.
> 
> That said, read on! :)

One of Zuko’s most vivid memories was of his father’s back. 

When he closed his eyes, he could still remember his father’s silhouette, towering above him in the dark. Ozai was surefooted on the forest floor. Unlike Zuko, he never tripped on stray branches. The trees reached high around him, blocking Zuko’s view of the night sky. The air was damp and thick in his nose. His feet crunched loudly on the forest floor. He was running, but with his short legs, he felt like he would never catch up with his father’s broad strides. 

Until finally, he did catch up, panting. They had come to the edge of the forest, and a river stretched wide before them. The air smelled different here, and it felt cooler. Further down the river, in the distance, there was a huge dam, stemming the flow of the river water. Zuko saw a few figures on the dam, moving in the dark. He recognized the bearings of his father’s men. They were assembling something at the top of the dam. 

Ozai clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed down. 

Zuko thrust his chin out and squared his shoulders. Ozai’s tight grip hurt, but he would never admit it. His father abhorred weakness. So he would not be weak.

“See there, Zuko.” Ozai nodded in the opposite direction of the dam. Zuko followed his gaze to Caldera City. Their city. This river led all the way to it, he knew, and fed into a large pond at the centre. From where they stood, brilliant lights shone from innumerable buildings standing tall and proud. Maybe some people were with their families right now, watching films at home. Others were working hard, staying up late to make ends meet. Just like Zuko’s father, whose work Zuko didn’t fully understand, besides it being integral to how the city ran itself.

Zuko knew his father’s work was illegal, technically. His mother always told him and Azula that they mustn’t tell strangers about his family’s work, not unless they were in grave danger. But the police worked with them, and so many people came to consult with his father. Ozai was a proud leader, and Zuko was destined to follow in his footsteps one day. Their work was important, so how bad could it be? 

Ozai snapped his fingers impatiently. Zuko caught himself - he always tended to daydream too much. His father hated that. He glanced sideways to meet Ozai’s eyes. Ozai looked back to the dam meaningfully. His father’s men were leaving now.

He noticed the moon, suddenly, high above one side of the dam. It was a full moon, round and dazzling. In his mother’s stories, either great or terrible things usually happened on the nights of a full moon. 

“Do you see the fuse?” 

_The fuse?_ Zuko squinted. There were some spherical, black shapes in the dark - they were big, and balanced at the top of the dam. Bombs? Why hadn’t his father’s men removed them? Zuko took a few steps in the direction of the dam to look closer. The bombs were all connected to a thick rope of some sort. The fuse. Zuko followed the fuse with his eyes and realized it came all the way to his and Ozai’s feet.

Maybe his father would teach him to defuse those bombs today. Zuko bounced on the balls of his feet. He could tell his mother in the morning about what he’d learned, and boast to Azula. She would be so jealous. How many times in one’s life did you get to defuse a bomb, let alone several? 

“Yes, I see it.” 

“Light it up, Zuko.” 

Zuko whipped around and stared up at his father, uncomprehending. Light it? He thought he’d misheard, but Ozai merely returned his stare coolly. 

The bombs would blow up. The dam would break. Water would flow freely, raging down the river. Until it hit the city. 

And the city would flood. 

Shock had chilled Zuko’s veins. It numbed his control over his tongue, too. 

“But that’s our city,” Zuko burst out. “Our city, and our people. That’s what you always say, Father. Don’t we have to protect them?”

“We are protecting them.” Ozai rounded on him. Something in Zuko flinched back as his father’s face drew close to his. In the moonlight, he could see the yellow-gold flecks in Ozai’s eyes, an exact match to his own. “After the flood, we’ll be there to help with reparations. It’ll make the police see that they need us. And the people need us. It’s for their own good, Zuko. Think in the long-term.”

Zuko looked back at the city. The lights were bright and countless. There were so many people in there. So many lives. 

Destroying the dam… how much destruction would it wreak? How many lives would the flood take? In the face of that, did it matter what they stood to gain from the flood? 

“No,” Zuko said firmly. He couldn't fathom the weight of all those lives on his conscience. 

“No?” Ozai’s voice was low. 

The hairs on Zuko’s nape prickled with awareness. This could just be one of his father’s tests. By saying no, surely, he would pass the test. He would be protecting the city. Surely Ozai wasn’t serious, he convinced himself. 

“No,” he repeated. 

Zuko had barely any time to react when his father turned on him and raised his hand. Zuko flinched, thinking his father would strike him, but instead Ozai slowly laid his palm over Zuko’s left eye, his fingers cupping the side of his head lightly. Zuko closed his left eyelid, peering awkwardly at his father with his right eye. His heart started beating faster, and he wasn’t sure why.

“Say that for me again, Zuko.” 

“No.” 

Fire consumed him. He registered it in his eyelid first. It was a blinding feeling, his nerves set on fire. The fire pierced all the way into his brain, and Zuko collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain and disbelief. The burning spread to his eyebrow, his forehead, into his hair, into his skull, searing off his skin mercilessly. He screamed and screamed until his throat was sore, rolling on the ground mindlessly. There was a cold shock as chilly water splashed over his face, but while it doused the flames licking into his hair, it didn’t do anything to numb his pain. 

He had failed his father's test. 

Zuko’s screams gradually died down into sobs. He didn’t know how long he lay there. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. His pain eroded his sense of time. His face was damp. He couldn’t tell if it was because he had wept, or because of the water that his father splashed on him. He only knew that he stayed there, trying to take control of the pain, wishing he would just pass out. Dimly, he registered that he had clasped both hands over his right eye, as if to protect it. He heard the clatter of something plastic – a pail? – and the rustle of his father’s shoes shifting on the forest floor.

It didn’t matter how loud he had screamed. No one had come for him. His body shook violently. He wished his mother were here. She would touch his hair, soothe him, tell him he would be okay. Tears rolled down his face. 

Ozai pulled his hands away from the right side of his face roughly. Zuko howled and pulled against his father’s grip desperately. He was certain his right eye would get burned off, too, for his insubordination. He wouldn’t be able to bear the pain all over again. Maybe he’d lost his left eye already. If he lost his right eye, he wouldn’t be able to see. He needed to see, he needed to see, he was just twelve, he’d barely seen the world –

“Zuko.” His father’s voice was soft. Almost tender. Zuko hadn’t heard his father speak to him like that in years. “Light the fuse.” 

He cracked his right eye open. The movement caused the muscles around his left eye to clench. It seared his skin anew, and Zuko whimpered. He panted through the throbbing waves of pain, radiating through his skull. He struggled to blink again, until he could see his father’s face. 

Ozai’s expression was indifferent as he let go of Zuko’s hands. He nodded at the fuse on the ground. It was close to Zuko. He only had to bend a small fire at it to light it. He could barely see in the dark, and he was trembling like a leaf, so his aim would be uncoordinated. But the fuse was there.

Just a small fire. 

Something in Zuko’s chest clenched. His jaw dropped open. He didn’t know what he was about to say, but he knew that this time he had to pass the test. 

He needed his eye, he needed his eye. 

So Zuko blasted his fire outwards blindly, sobbing with the effort it took, and became who he had to become. 

* * *

_15 years later_

“Please,” the man on the ground begged, coughing up blood. One of his father’s men, but he had been masquerading as one of Zuko’s. A traitor, to Zuko. It was one of Ozai’s many tests of Zuko’s worthiness. 

Zuko had passed. This time. 

Pain radiated from Zuko’s knuckles and up the tendons of his wrists. He glanced down at his hands to see them scraped raw. Blood dripped steadily to the ground. Indifferently, he squatted down to wipe his hands off on the man’s shirt, and then stood up again. 

“Take him away,” Zuko ordered. His men were watching the scene silently from the wall. “Dump him in an underground tunnel.” The man would likely die there. It was a long climb to the surface. If he managed to escape the tunnel and decided to grovel at his father’s feet, however… well, he was better off dead or banished. Ozai had no use for a man who could not spy undetected. 

Zuko’s men hurried to obey. He picked up his discarded coat from the floor and shrugged it onto his shoulders. “Let this man be an example to you all. I will not tolerate traitors, no matter who they were sent by. The next one will meet a worse fate.”

He yanked the door open and climbed up the stairwell. He came up to darkened streets and cold air whipping against his face. It had taken him all night to interrogate his father’s man.

Zuko flipped up the collar of his coat and buried his hands in his pockets. He quickened his pace, avoiding meeting the eyes of any passersby. He was intent on getting back to his apartment. Exhaustion weighed his steps down, made him feel as though his legs were made of lead rather than muscle and bone. A deep ache pulsed behind his eyes. 

His headache only pulsed more fiercely as a bright fire flared up before him. Zuko grunted in annoyance, squinting ahead. 

A boy was standing in the middle of a small circle. He was bending fire in the air into the shape of something winged, with a tail. Probably a dragon. His friends booed loudly at his attempts. 

The boy spotted Zuko’s dour look. 

“What, you think I'm being lame too? It’s a festival night, lighten up!” The boy laughed gleefully, giving up on his dragon. Instead, he stood with his palms ablaze with fire, like he was waiting for Zuko to bend at him. When Zuko merely stared back blankly, the boy scoffed and walked away to rejoin his friends. He bended his fire into balls and pretended to juggle them, to the delight of his peers. 

Zuko continued walking. The road slowly crested upwards as it climbed up a hill. 

When Zuko reached the top, he could see the whole city, stretching far and wide before him. The moon shone bright and round - it was a full moon tonight. He looked down on Caldera City. His city. It’s inhabitants would be dancing tonight, blissfully unaware of the darkness brewing beneath their feet. 

His hands drew into fists. 

He walked down the road. 

Ahead of him, the night festival was rife with activity. The crowd of people thickened gradually as Zuko walked. The street was lined with stalls selling food and drinks and knickknacks. Most people were wearing masks and costumes. They laughed and chatted unreservedly. A few bumped into Zuko, and backed off with wary apologies when they saw the disfigured side of his face. His scar marked him as someone who had been shamed by the _Mayonaka_ -clan. Everyone who knew it would give him a wide berth. 

He passed a stall selling gaudy masks, most of them sprinkled with glitter. He would have walked on, but something blue-and-white caught his eye. He stopped at the stall, and the old woman attending it watched him quietly. What he’d seen was a mask of the Blue Spirit - an ancient mythical figure in the Fire Nation. He used to beg his mother to read tales of the Blue Spirit’s heroism to him, when he was younger and she was still around. 

His fingers traced over the nose of the mask. The surface was smooth and firm under his fingers. The eyeholes were small, and the mask was wide, enough to cover his whole face. On him, it would conceal all evidence of his scar. 

Caught up in the impulse of the moment, he paid for the mask and fastened it on his face. Maybe he would regret his purchase later, but at least now he could pass through the festival without earning any second looks. 

Zuko walked. He walked and walked until the crowd around him thinned and the sounds of conversation died down. Until he was in darkness again. 

He’d expected his headache to abate at least a little at the lack of noise and light, but it didn’t. He sucked in a breath, and sighed. He’d need to take some painkillers later. He picked up his pace. 

A crash rang out in the air. It echoed. 

He froze, his hand inching towards the knife he kept in his sleeve. The sound had come from the alley somewhere in front of Zuko. He edged towards it, keeping his steps light and silent. 

He heard a feminine voice, harsh and enraged.

“I don’t want to see you here again. Do you understand me?”

He settled his shoulder against the wall and peered around the corner. A woman in a long robe and a hat stood over a thuggish guard, a threat in her stance. A young, teenage girl cowered next to a pile of rubbish bins, trembling, her dress torn. A pouch lay on the ground beside her, with some paltry change scattered on the asphalt. 

The man shakily nodded. 

The woman brandished a knife. The man gasped and backed further up, but there was nowhere to go. 

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes! Yes!” He squeaked. 

The woman turned towards the girl. Her face was masked. “Pick up your money.”

The girl jumped and obeyed, her tremulous fingers gathering her coins and shoving them into her pouch haphazardly. 

“Now go.” 

The girl didn’t speak. She ran off, her footsteps thundering down on the concrete. Her pace didn’t slow even when she passed Zuko - in her haste, she didn’t seem to see him.

“And you.” The woman's voice was a low snarl. “It takes a special kind of cruel to attack and steal from little girls.” 

“I’m sorry!” 

She scoffed. She made a motion with her hands - Zuko couldn’t see what she was doing, because her back was facing him. But the man froze, his frame strangely rigid, his jaws agape. Like he was being controlled somehow, from the inside. The practised grace in her stance suggested she was bending, but she certainly wasn’t bending fire. He would’ve seen a flare of light if she was a Firebender. In his preoccupation to figure out what the woman was doing, Zuko missed the words she hissed. The thug’s body relaxed and his mouth shut. He nodded quickly and hastened out of the alley. 

The man scrambled to a halt when he saw Zuko. “You saw this witch attack me and just stood there?” 

Something in Zuko must have still been gunning for a fight. Irate, he fisted a hand in the man’s shirt and thrust him up against the wall, his knife on the man’s throat. 

Zuko pressed the knife slightly into skin. Blood welled up from the cut. Just a little, enough to teach him a lesson. Zuko shoved him away and to the side. His false bravado gone, the man whimpered and bustled away. 

He turned. The masked woman approached him silently. 

As he watched her, she watched him, her head cocking to the side. Her hand extended towards him, her wrist thin and elegant. Her delicate arms belied the power in her muscles. 

Zuko looked carefully at the woman, but her face was covered with a mask. So was his. It didn't matter what he did in the dark, here, in this mask. 

He took her hand in his and shook it. He peered at her, but in this darkness, he couldn’t even tell the colour of her eyes. 

Her hand tightened on his, her fingers moving on his skin, searching. The pressure she exerted was gentle, but his knuckles still stung. He realized she was feeling the remnants of bloodstains on his fingers and his wounded knuckles.

The silence between them was appraising. He tensed. There were only so many people who snuck around with blood on their hands. He didn’t want to threaten her, but if she suspected who he was… He didn't need the police hearing that the mafia was sniffing around a public festival.   
  
Then again, he had seen her... reach inside of a man. She had probably realized it. A secret of his, for a secret of hers. It was a fair trade.

She nodded at him, like her thoughts had mirrored his. Her head’s tilt exposed her to the moonlight. The gold lining her mask glinted. The streaking patterns across the face of the mask were reminiscent of the Painted Lady. It seemed myths of the Fire Nation appealed to this woman, too. The mask didn’t cover her whole face, like his did - he could see the curved line of her jaw, her dark skin. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, wide and riveting. They were a pale colour, either blue or green.

He had barely gotten a good look at her when laughter rang out from somewhere behind them, startling them both. She slipped her hand out of his and moved into the darkness of the alleyway. 

Zuko glanced behind to see a young couple. They giggled and stumbled along the pavement, even as they clutched onto each other in futile attempts at regaining their balance. They were drunk. Zuko curled his lip in disdain and slipped back into the alley. 

The masked woman had disappeared. He couldn’t figure out how - it’s not as if there was anywhere to go from here. She could have climbed up the stack of rubbish bins and jumped to the top of the wall, but surely that was impossible. Beyond the wall, there was a river, and it was deep. And it was freezing cold at this time of the night. No sane person would swim across it. 

Unless she was a Waterbender. 

He had seen Waterbenders perform in Caldera City before. Those were just Waterbending dancers, not martial artists, but they had had the same innate grace with which the masked woman had moved, like they were one with their element. He had read about Waterbenders as well, and he knew they could do many things: travel over water, heal someone using the internal paths of their chi, transform water to ice and back, freeze someone in an ice block, create knives made of ice… And a few could even bend the blood pulsing inside living beings. 

Zuko looked around the alley a few more times, searching for hidden doors, before he gave up. He was out most nights - it wasn’t unrealistic to think he might bump into the masked woman again. That is, if she decided to play the role of local vigilante once more. 

He was fascinated by her. She had moved stealthily, her figure lithe and quick in the dark. She’d taken his bloodied hand, and shaken it, unafraid of his roughed-up knuckles and the signs that he’d just beaten up someone. Her eyes had seemed to look through him, as if she knew what he was and accepted it. And of course, she could bloodbend, an art which was as merciless as it was precise.

But it wasn’t very wise if she made a habit of her vigilante work. It couldn’t stay secret, not in a city that belonged to the _Mayonaka_. It would rouse gossip and interest, and attract the wrong sort of attention. Eventually, it would reach his father. And Ozai’s attention was never any mere curiosity. 

It was dangerous.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked the first chapter! Please do send kudos if you did, and comment to let me know your thoughts! 😉 The next chapter will be from Katara’s POV.
> 
> Mayonaka is Japanese for ‘midnight’.
> 
> *Warnings: explicit violence in the beginning half of this chapter where one character gets his face burned, implicit hints of sexual assault in the second half.
> 
> Edit: miles-of-heart made some GORGEOUS surprise art for this chapter, please do check it out: https://miles-of-heart.tumblr.com/post/625848293883297792/mafiazuko-in-a-blue-spirit-mask-stumbles-upon-a Thank you so much <3


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